Diversity Challenge

Well, if you didn’t see it the second round of the Dear Wee Nicky Clegg versus Nasty Bigot Adolf Farage was an absolute hoot. An hour of pure joy as the oh-so-sincere Clegg rattled off ad hominem attack after spitty little insult after snidey remark in a bout which, to my mind he’d lost before the first question had even been posed. His opening address telegraphed his entire limited fight plan and every single response sounded like a scripted attack on Nigel Farage’s personal values. He rarely answered a question without obfuscation and evasion; at times he looked distinctly shifty and otherwise behaved like a petulant child.

Whoever had advised him had clearly decided – from the sanitised bubble in which the media hacks and politicians alike dwell – that the instincts of the already racist British public must not be allowed to be further tainted by UKIP’s hateful bigotry. A shame then that they utterly failed to read the genuine concerns of a huge proportion of the great unwashed, most of whom have the vote and who are fed up of being lied to. It was irrelevant whether they intend to vote for UKIP or to vote to leave the EU, should we ever get the long clamoured-for referendum. Nigel Farage may not be the answer to the country’s future, but he is the only politician presently asking the perfectly reasonable question; what the hell did you lot do to my country?

When the cosmopolitan elites take their delightful nuclear families away to far-off lands to immerse themselves in another culture they come back invigorated, fizzing with joy at Poppy’s rudimentary grasp of the local language and little Hugo’s newly acquired taste for an obscure artisan cheese dish which they simply MUST try and replicate for their next dinner party. But then the disappointment sets in as they discover that among the three hundred and seventy four cheeses available at their local Islington delicatessen, Bokmakiri isn’t one of them. And none of the ignorant serving girls behind the counter can indulge Poppy with an authentic Kiswahili greeting. Why, they declare, then we must bring the world here.

The world, of course is delighted by the offer – they have heard of our streets paved with gold and have met the grand British vacationer and seen his inquisitive generosity at first hand as they sold them newly-minted artefacts at heavily inflated prices. Also, when they get to England they will no longer have to subsist on bloody buffalo cheese but they can gorge on pizza and chicken tikka masala and dress in suits and jeans and tracksuit bottoms. And no longer will they have to have families of seventeen or cook around an open fire at the side of the road. They can become British!

No, no no, say Adam and Evelyn, no, you must not sacrifice your culture, you must bring it here and dance for our amusement. You must bring your clothes, your customs, your late night noisy street life, your smells your vendettas and your seventeen children and never change – don’t go changing. You must build your own churches, run your own shops and erect your own shanty town community centres. Planning permission? No problem. Integrate? Oh, you don’t want to be British – they are nasty, parochial, racist people.

In fact, so abhorrent are the white working class that you must come here and overwhelm them in reparation for what they did to your country; all those ugly roads and railways, all that sordid commerce. Come here and show them how it is to be a true citizen of the world. And don’t worry, they will move aside and give you jobs and school places and houses and interpreters and we will curb their simmering resentments for they are too ignorant to understand, as we do, that culture is important. So important that you must never lose yours… while theirs, loathsome, tiny-minded and based as it is on hatred and fear, must be utterly eradicated.

Of course, Clegg’s big schtick was based on his own peculiar sentimentality for the wondrous diversity we have in Britain today, as if Britain’s inclusion of every other part of the world wasn’t already diverse enough without more white Europeans. But have you ever noticed how diversity is too good to be left to the ‘ethnics’? It’s been a one-way street; while change must be foisted on Britain to make it ‘better’ our rulers appear to insist on incomers maintaining their monocultural ways. This is what ordinary people resent; the notion that politicians know best what is good for them. The only nose being rubbed in diversity last night was Nick Clegg’s.

Ding-dong, Round One

To paraphrase Malvolio, some are born rich, some achieve riches and some have riches thrust upon them. It’s a human imperative to acquire wealth, nurture your own children above all others and pass onto them what advantages you can; the envy of wealth is an essentially human thing and drives many of us on to greatness. But in the great modern rush for equality a head start is frowned upon – usually by those who have none - as an evil to be banished to feudal history. In the Guardian, James Butler argues that “Inherited wealthis an injustice” and proposes its abolition, presumably by confiscating your estate via a 100% inheritance tax.

In the eyes of your card-carrying, caring socialist it is better to take than to receive; it is better to be equally mediocre than perpetuate a system where some have and some have not. So James must have been delighted to hear that it is not only financial inheritance that could be denied future generations but cultural capital must also be withheld - how dare the English have a head start, for instance, in the international language of commerce? To assist British education on its downward spiral we now import such numbers of foreign-born children – I’m guessing to go up the chimneys our bone idle offspring won’t - that City of Leeds school has taken to teaching English as aforeign language.

In some parts of Leeds English has been a foreign language for centuries but, damn and blast it, nobody must benefit from innate expertise. In fact, sod it, forget English altogether; I’m pretty sure it’s only a matter of time before The EU decrees we resurrect Esperanto so that we can all struggle equally to communicate. Only when every single one of us starts at rock bottom will the great European experiment have achieved its ends. Although I can’t help but notice that in order to pursue those aims, a new royalty is emerging, passing on the reins of knowledge through dynastic inheritance; some family fortunes are more equal than others.

So last night’s Leaders’ debate on EU membership, between Nigel Farage representing the concerns of many millions of ordinary people and Nick Clegg, fighting the corner for yet more integration was a fascinating glimpse into the future. On the one hand a generally plain-speaking and credible example of an independent thinker, on the other a dedicated sticker to a script written in a galaxy far, far away. “In is good, out is bad” said Clegg, tirelessly swinging his hypnotic talisman and repeating ‘facts’ with no provenance, knowing his future ascension to the European throne room may depend on carrying this debate. Farage did his best to blow cigarette smoke at him.

But the most fascinating bit of the whole exercise was how the various pundits presented their ‘analysis’ of events. Danny Alexander declared Clegg the clear winner, but he would, wouldn’t he? John Redwood managed to both declare for Farage and dismiss him in the same statement. And lots of ‘independent’ journalists sought to preserve their future access to all sides - and hence their living - by slimily plumping for a no-score-draw. But the only official poll, recording the views of 1000 people selected to represent the political affiliations of the country as a whole, declared 57% to 36% in favour of Farage.

Mrs T would have won hands down!

It won’t end there, will it? Because it is highly likely that the votes cast represent inherited opinions, some of which will be based on personal experience, some of it on hand-me-down familial dogma. Worst of all, because it appears to show that people actually want, overwhelmingly, to have their say on our EU membership, that ballot must be overturned at all costs. Next week it is the job of the BBC to host the event. Anybody want to guess what the outcome of that second mini-referendum is likely to be?

Mass Debate!

I’m pretty sure I know what I believe in, politically. A relatively small, minimal tax state that serves the people, providing defence, law and order, diplomacy, education and emergency services, leaving the rest in the hands of efficient private enterprise best suited to supply the needs as and where they arise. I’m also certain about the kind of society I want to live in. A self-reliant, well-educated, civilised and tolerant population of people with ambition but also with a sense of proportion, unenvious of those who do well for themselves and generous towards those who need help.

I’m a realist as well and I know that none of this is actually achievable, or at least not for very long. The big state cannot be relied upon to hold power without becoming corrupt and private enterprise cannot be relied on not to generate monopolies and wield state-like power itself. Populations similarly are largely incapable of becoming civilised without restraint. The fact is everybody has a part to play whether it be mover or shaker or production line drone. And whoever holds the reigns of political power can only ever shift the balance a little bit one way (state) or the other (private) while the population’s part in the process is to be perpetually dissatisfied.

But one thing seems to be self-evident – give people a living without exacting effort from them in return and they grumble less overall. So the greater proportion of people that are effectively kept by the state, the greater the momentum towards ever more government. Which is the entire problem with Europe. People are fond of saying they are pro-Europe, but anti -European Union; it’s the same thing. There is no country called Europe, but that is the ultimate aim of the EU. And given that its officials are appointed rather than elected, the daily output of the regulation machine goes largely unreported and its aim is ever more expansion and control, the EU resembles totalitarianism far more than it does democracy.

But in the UK, like many other countries in this union of soviets, where your behaviour is controlled by ever more edicts, the greater mass of people simply believe what they are told, that in is good and out is bad. That in is prosperity and out is squalor. That in is freedom and light, while out is cold and miserable and nationalistic and therefore nasty. Look at your passport; above United Kingdom it says European Union. In the future it will only say European Union and all two-and-a-half of our main political parties have signed up to that. But they daren’t say it out loud, which is why only Nick Clegg, with nothing to lose, is picking up the gauntlet Nigel Farage threw down months ago.

I sincerely hope Farage will wipe the floor with Clegg and I fully expect him to do so. Clegg’s standing is low, the LibDems looking as if they were prepared to sacrifice principle for the sake of power, but we already know the planks on which he will fight this battle. He will repeat, over and over again, the lines his masters have given him, about jobs, trade and peace and love and he will look slightly ridiculous. Farage, for his part will have to resist the temptation to get boisterous and to point and laugh because his greatest weapon is his sheer likeability and the tone of common sense he strikes. But I fear it may all be for nought in the end. 

A year ago, in sheer frustration at the refusal of any party to even consider an in/out referendum, I joined UKIP as a show of support. I never intended to be an activist and I have never believed – as some evidently do – that a party made up mostly of defectors would be capable of returning more than maybe one or two MPs, let alone form a government, but enough was enough and my protest was duly registered. But after the way the Wythenshawe by-election was fought by the local UKIP branch – mirroring the LibDem approach of altering policy to suit the local voter - I’m not renewing. Despite the mainstream media painting UKIP as ‘far-right’ (which they never were) I’m hearing far too much left-wing, big state, benefit state rhetoric just now.

Seeing how formerly Euro-sceptic ministers are now tight-lipped about their old views and handle their about-turns with barely a twitch, I have little hope that any new party would be able to retain their founding principles for long. You never get to hear why they converted, either. It’s like a sect, the EU-Moonies, where formerly sane people now recite Agenda 21 like the prayer that saved their lives. There is something rotten at the heart of the European Projekt (the Kinnocks, for one) and it looks more and more as if there is nothing we can do to escape it. By all means vote for UKIP where they have a real chance of election, but for goodness sake, whatever you do, don’t let Labour back in to finish us off for good.